


bistec

by nowsaguaro



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bedelia makes umm a cameo, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Late Night Conversations, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Sharing a Bed, stories from the boat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowsaguaro/pseuds/nowsaguaro
Summary: the men are pulled from the sea by late night fisherman and set sail with their own boat to Panama. they talk about their feelings and touch about them, too––––––––––––---“Everything that happened these past three years seems small enough to fit in my fist. Like I’d hardly know if I dropped it somewhere.”“Yet another chapter that you find will crystallize in the heat of the hand. Words that were once deeply engraved become illegible.”
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 27
Kudos: 110





	1. Helado

They both expected a splash before death, or maybe even a new sound entirely. A final scream of the brain – something only the dead hear. 

It was instead something of a pop into the cold ocean, possibly supplemented by the imagined ring of bones breaking, in a chorus which humans are supposed to find horrible. The brutality of equal and opposite force. They tumbled so ferociously and so disregarded by the beast of the cliffside-lapping Atlantic that only the moonlight oriented Will to what was above and what was below. He just had to decide which called to him more. Air or depth.

He and Hannibal were pulled apart at the collision with the water, both of their mouths forced open on impact despite the efforts to hold the caps over their lungs. Now separate, Will wondered if he could bargain with the universe for conditional survival, _just do to me what you do to him_.

Will’s climb toward the moonlight was a half-brained effort for bodily survival - a primal instinct that even existential indecision couldn't genetically write over. Immediately following his wet attempt at a gasping breath, he was overcome with the deep dread that he would live just to watch himself die slowly and, worse, that living without Hannibal would be less of a limb amputation and more of a vivisection to which he surrendered his lungs.

He heaved up water in body-shaking coughs and wretches. The salt water’s drag through his respiratory system was more agonizing than any wounds he sustained.

“Hannibal!” He screamed over the ocean. It was brighter in the cove than he would have imagined, but still the loud water squeezed hope from him in a second. His voice didn’t travel at all. It seemed like the joke of a cruel god, to have no echo now. He didn’t bother screaming again. He tread water without working limbs, hoping hypothermia would sink him soon to punish his hesitation to live.

The light of an old deck boat carved through the night; its small red blinking burned his eyes. It pivoted on a small axis, tilting to a strange angle to crawl in his direction. At that moment, Will decided he did not want to survive the fall.

The men on the boat didn’t ask any questions before they tugged him roughly by his arms onto the ship. Why would they? Why would any person be here and not want to be saved? 

Will screamed at the pain from the sudden awareness of his broken forearm, which was no longer supported by the numbing water. Shock threatened to claim his body while he spasmed out more sea water onto the deck. It took a single glance around the boat to imagine what they were doing out here. They weren’t looking for him. Just men wearing the reek of a day on the water.

Will tried to speak again. “My friend…” He pleaded with them as though begging for his own life. His ocean voice felt like another blade in his already torn mouth.

“He pushed you?” 

“No, no.” He could laugh but not yet. “My friend is out there, too.” Will knew Hannibal couldn’t have drifted far. It was only moments ago that they ruined themselves against the concrete Atlantic. 

“Alright, then. We’ll find him. We’ll find him.” The men were coordinated around each other, taking calm turns at communicating. _Brothers_ , Will gathered.

One of the younger men set a large LED flashlight onto the edge of the boat. He swivelled its beam first along the edge of the cliff, then in scanning lines back toward the boat, as though he was reading a book.

It was only seconds – he could tell as he counted time in breaths – but he felt as though he was barreling towards something, like maybe he was still falling. 

“There.” The younger man seemed strangely unmoved, acting as if he found dying men every night. _Military_ , Will gathered.

The older driver - _father_ \- turned the crescent shaped wheel to approach the floating body. For a heartbeat, Will braced himself to see some other strange floating man, but he diagnosed his own delirium. The only thing he had to prepare for was a corpse. And how quickly he would jump back into the water if he saw his friend transformed into a dead man.

Two of the men leaned over the edge of the boat, grabbed Hannibal by a leg and arm and deposited him onto the boat’s aluminum panel floor, landing heavily on his side. Before the spots creeping over his vision swallowed his consciousness whole, Will scrambled on his numb knees toward the body.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t make himself say any words. Instead, Will pushed Hannibal’s stomach in, _hard_. He’d never saved a drowned man and it seemed completely ridiculous but the force against Hannibal’s gut made him vomit out dirty ocean water, made viscous with bile. A man on the boat leaned down on his other side and smacked against his back and Hannibal emptied the salt water from his lungs in violent coughs. 

He still didn’t seem conscious, but his chest was moving up and down in quick, tiny breaths that made him look alien and small to Will. 

But that was enough. Will collapsed beside him, feeling shattered and relieved. 

\------------

The next time Will opened his eyes, it was daylight and he was in a child’s bedroom. The bedframe was homemade and dark wood and the blue walls were tacked with pictures of a family he didn’t recognize. The light through the single dusty window was white – a time just before noon. He didn’t move and for a moment he considered holding his breath until the comfortable, dreamless unconsciousness took him again. Maybe one day he’d wake up not bleeding.

The door opened slowly and nearly silently, with a man peeking a single eye in. The eye stared back at Will from the dark hallway and Will couldn’t muster up enough energy or sense of reality for a fight or flight response.

The voice, aged and calm, gently whispered back to the hall, “his eyes are open.”

The hand retreated from the doorknob, the shadow of the man shifting to be replaced by a familiar face.

Beaming and freshly dressed, a very ill-looking Hannibal padded into the room and shut the door behind him before sitting on the edge of the twin bed. He sat down by Will’s left hand. 

  
  


“Good morning.”

“Of _course_ you’re up and walking.” Will tried to roll his eyes but they lolled closed for a beat, still processing the feeling of being a human-sized open wound.

“Of course indeed, William, _I_ didn’t fracture my tibia.” He flicked Will in his right calf.

“Am I dead?” Will asked, not entirely joking.

“Do you believe you are dead?” Hannibal poked him in the wound on his cheek.

Will grunted and tried to reach a hand up to grab at his wound, but found that unsuccessful. His right arm was tied down to his chest in a restraining sling made of leather belts, no doubt to protect something broken as well. He pushed a memory of a straight jacket quickly from his mind. An image of his dislocated shoulder and fractured radius being reset flashed behind his eyes instead. That was in the competition for the most traumatic memory from the night before.

Hannibal brushed his matted curls from his face. “In a way I have to thank you.” He smiled genuinely, knowing he wouldn’t receive a response. “In the absence of a parachute it seems the second best choice is someone to break your fall.”

“Wasn’t on purpose,” Will grumbled but couldn’t manage to suppress his smile.

“We were pulled onto a sailboat, do you remember that part?”

Will nodded shakily with closed eyes. Hannibal still brushed at the hairs around his face, not willing to let go yet.

“We’re at Tom’s home in Norfolk.” Hannibal pulled his hand out of Will’s hair, dragging it over his bandaged cheek, then over the gauze on his shoulder, to rest it on his warm bare chest, just above his rigid sling. “Tom is the elderly gentleman. His sons–” he paused at Will’s squinting stare. “What is the last thing you remember from the night?”

“You breathing.” Will answered, remembering being overwhelmed by the pack survival hormones just from seeing Hannibal breathing and alive and free.

“Well I did quite a bit of that, thankfully.” He laughed down at the drifting man, but he knew what he meant. 

Will’s eyes fluttered wide again. “What about you?” He lifted his left arm to reach for Hannibal’s stomach wound, no doubt bandaged beneath that particularly shabby emerald sweater.

Hannibal caught Will’s grasping hand. “I’m fine.” The longer truth was that Tom knew his way around stitches (disorganized and grisly as his turned out to be) and rightfully had a blaring mistrust of law enforcement. “Ruptured colon.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry, doctor, I’m sure ocean bacteria will work wonders for an abdominal gunshot wound.”

Hannibal laughed as heartily as he could with torn muscles. “I’m sure.” He held Will’s gaze with a rare whimsical warmth. As with everything, they'd wait and see.

“So.” Will said it more as a question than a transition. One day he would ask for the story of Tom’s hidden talents and suspiciously generous discretion (or possible cluelessness) but, more immediately, some nameless current in the brain awakened, some impatient emotion: something like _self preservation with a plus one._

“Panama.”

“Lovely this time of year?” Will squinted. 

Hannibal mischievously smiled and slowly shifted to standing. “Always lovely.” 

Will’s eyes closed again but he remained alert and communicating, “so we’ll sail. I’m gonna guess that you have no loose ends.”

“Actually, I have one or two.”

  
  



	2. Jamón

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loose ends.

Balancing exhaustion and exhilaration from their visit to a mutual friend, Hannibal lugged a cooler (and Will) into their rental car to drive down the coast toward Southport, North Carolina. As they expected, Dr. du Maurier had few antibiotics left over from previous illnesses and surgeries – hardly a full regimen for even one injured man but it would be enough for the US leg of the trip. However, she _did_ have a tremendous amount of painkillers. “Now, what do you need all _these_ for, Bedelia?” Will whispered to her medicine cabinets.

Between his sliced tongue and Hannibal’s perforation, they would only manage protein shakes and low sodium broth for some time, but feeding Bedelia her own tender meat was the sport for the day more so than their enjoying her as well.

They made just a handful of mysterious stops; every mile they put between them and Maryland was a triumph. Will had managed pretty well so far despite requiring a few humiliating bridal carries and having only one accessible arm pulled through the sleeve of the gifted sweater. “I was gonna donate these anyways,” Tom said.

Hannibal looked _beyond_ ‘at peace’ – joyous almost – whenever he huddled back into the sedan after filling the gas tank or stopping in a corner store. The men laughed when he emerged from the pharmacy with pramoxine and neomycin, as if antibacterial ointment would pull their bodies back from the salty hell they were ravaged by. The pitiful makeshift pharmacy was almost a joke, but the good doctor reminded Will that every bit helps, so Will applied the ointment sloppily to his cheek and shoulder in the sun visor’s tiny mirror. 

  
  


It wasn’t too much further and the authorities wouldn’t have released their information just yet – that’d be too grand a humiliation for the feds. The only hints of an escaped convict on their journey were the orange LED signs warning drivers not to pick up hitchhikers. 

At the first one, Will flinched from the second hand embarrassment, “c’mon, Jack.”

“Uh oh,” Hannibal mused, stealing a glance at Will in the passenger’s seat. “We had better keep our eyes peeled, Will.”

“Dangerous men abound,” Will scoffed again, mostly in disbelief that he was now allowed to be rabid and wicked and loved more for it. That he was a nefarious escapee, too. He told himself that one day he would retrain his anger to fester in him rather than be relied on as a source of visceral satisfaction – that maybe then he’d break through the hypnotic affection he felt for another wicked man – that maybe then the haze he allowed to wash over their exchanged horrors would fade and they could see each other for their dirt. But now he was positively giddy.

By the time they took their exit off of i-95 onto the backroads, they had seen five different warnings. “Our friends at the bureau might all have gray hair by year’s end.” Hannibal looked overly pleased with himself.

 _His capacity for joy is probably the most intimidating thing about him,_ Will thought quietly, _I want that for me._

  
  


\--

After a night in a pay-by-the-hour motel in Rocky Point, of chillingly far apart double beds, the pair were only thirty minutes from their destination. They laughed through facetiously flirtatious and overall disgusting sink showers, helping each other in and out of Tom’s kitschy clothing (and Will back into his straight jacket sling). They were unsurprised to find they shared equally neurotic night rituals and that they both craved page turning to fall asleep.

Hannibal stayed close by but spent the majority of the following day on his new phone, giving Will full reign to choose an adequate boat. One that could carry them over 1700 miles without looking out of place at sea.

He decided on a charming trawler with a maroon stripe. It certainly had years on it and the interior had only a single soft bench for sleeping but the deck area had enough room to stretch out, weather permitting. But – most importantly – it was one of the few seaworthy options at the port and it came with a filled tank. They’d only need to stop a few times before selling it again in Colón.

  
  


“I figure we’ll travel close enough to land that we can dock if we absolutely need to but far enough away that we can avoid customs,” Will said, spreading out a paper map despite the wind. He closed the windows and duct taped the corners to a wall by the controls.

Hannibal dragged a finger twelve miles from the shoreline. “‘International waters.’ Not a more beautiful poem in the world.”

“Not one I’ve heard.” Will felt his rabidness chip away slowly into a quieter moral corruption after their days of laughter and car travel. He could embrace his own overly rationalized depravity so long as he could island the two of them out there on the water. _Maybe we’ll die in the sea after all,_ he thought, but the idea came and went.

\--

A few young men helped settle their belongings into the cabin. Among the tubs of drinking water, their cooler, weeks of food, books, blankets, pharmaceuticals, and apparel, were a few elastic-fastened binders.

“Well _someone’s_ been busy,” Will prodded, opening the legal forms and impressive pads of cash. He was getting rather good at hobbling on his hard cast, especially when aided by the pink cloud of oxycodone.

“One of my many talents is memorizing debit card information. We are now Gabriel Phillip Walker and Jonas Matteo Antinis,” Hannibal proudly said, opening the two navy passports from across their plastic dining table. “I shall be Mr. Walker.” 

Will shot him a confused glare before recognizing it as a joke. “You say ‘Walker’ like it’s the given name of French nobleman.” Will opened the passport to see his face next to

  * Surname/Nom/Appelido
  * WALKER
  * Given names/Prénomes/Nombres
  * GABRIEL PHILLIP



“Okay, you get dibs on the American,” Hannibal smiled patronizingly, certain that even the way he said ‘dibs’ was charming.

\--

It was only minutes into their trip when Hannibal noticed Will’s pensive and distant stare.

“In our world we feel like the biggest things now. But eventually they will stop hunting us. They’ll grow tired and bored, retire, return to their families, and die. And, as is the natural order of things, we will go from scandalous obsession to story to gossip to rumor. The culture forgets. Once culture forgets to tell a story, we become unheard of.” Hannibal paused his shuffling through their supplies to look over at him, “so, Will, you can rest if you want to rest. But do you want to rest?”

Will swiveled in the control chair and thought for just a moment. “I don’t want to rest. But I don’t want to feel hunted.”

“You are tired of being prey.” Hannibal slunk forward, his heavy movements still betraying his hidden wounds. “If you were ever such a thing.”


	3. Sancocho y Tuétano

On the third night, they saw their first clear sky. Hannibal came out of the cabin to find Will stargazing. He set a bowl down on the deck beside him.

“Feeling wistful?” Hannibal joined him on the deck, choosing to lay down a few feet away – on Will’s unbroken side. “Will, your soul is moulting. Here begins nostalgia as our greatest betrayer.” Unwilling to exert the effort required for resting on elbows, they both laid flat on their backs, ignoring dinner for a moment. The moon was in a perfect crescent shape and there was an unfathomable amount of stars visible now without much light pollution from the nearby islands.

“Oh, I’m not one for nostalgia." He kept eye contact with the stars. "I just like to feel small.”

“I know what you mean. Sometimes I think God forgets us among the steel and glass of the city.”

“You think God sees us better out here? I think it’d be a relief to be forgotten.” Will struggled to believe in any god, but he loved that Hannibal believed in a higher power. It was one of his beautifully confounding contradictions. Without looking over, Will continued, “I once wanted to purge myself of you.”

“And were you ever successful?” Hannibal of course knew the answer but asked anyway, nervous at the prospect of allowing another silence. 

“Not for a moment. But I don’t want to anymore.” He tugged his eyes away from the stars to look over at Hannibal.

“I would not feel any relief to be forgotten by _you,_ Will.” Hannibal smiled, his glimmering eyes illuminated in colorless moonlight. He looked practically sketched in black and white when the yellow cabin lights were switched off.

They both huffed out relaxed laughs. The laughs of time and pain-aged men glad to let the universe have its way with them.

After a beat of silence, Will spoke again. “Everything that happened these past three years seems small enough to fit in my fist. Like I’d hardly know if I dropped it somewhere.”

Hannibal answered in a matter-of-fact rumble, “yet another chapter that you find will crystallize in the heat of the hand. Words that were once deeply engraved become illegible.”

Will blinked away the bittersweet thought and looked over at the bowl beside him. “What are we having?” he asked while trying to sit up.

“Soup of marrow. From our very brave pig.” Hannibal smirked. “Eat. We will need the nutrients.”

“No fancy name for this dish?”

Hannibal grunted through his rise to sitting, though he managed to look less like an overturned beetle than Will. “Not sure it can earn even the title of ‘dish,’ but let’s call it comfort food.” It was always a funny image to see Bedelia’s expensive kitchenware emerge from the small microwave in the cabin - funnier, still, to take her traveling.

  
  


Will finished the broth pretty quickly, mostly in an effort to get to lay down again. Hannibal, trying to find his normalcy by playing host, grabbed the bowl from beside Will and washed them in the small sink. Once again, when he returned, he laid down on Will’s unbroken side, though closer now. They turned their heads to each other but not their bodies.

  
  


“Are we only capable of hurting each other?” Will snaked his hand across the space between them and up around Hannibal’s throat. He didn’t press down, but he gripped him there just enough to remind him he’s still capable of hating him, of killing him, though he had no leverage now at this angle. Hannibal didn’t move or respond. He searched Will’s face as Will started to speak again, “I wish sometimes I knew another way to talk to you.” He retracted his hand a little. 

“It seems violence is our lingua franca. It is nice to not labor our minds with the weights of convention.”

Will grimaced out a smile. “Convention was getting mighty heavy.”

Hannibal watched Will’s hand move between them and come to rest down on his exit wound. Will pressed there, but Hannibal didn’t pull away or stop him; he just watched with his mouth fallen open.

“Show me.” 

“It’s covered in bandages, Will,” he whispered back.

Will nodded. Even though they acquired a buffet of antibiotics from a questionable gentleman in Durham, they didn’t need to risk agitating his wound with sea mist. But Will liked the idea that Hannibal was stitched up like a farm animal. He pressed in harder, causing Hannibal to finally grab his wrist on an impulse.

They both wondered if they’d recognize love if it wasn’t this way. If it didn’t bleed a little. 

It wasn't the wickedness that made Will despise the other man for so long. He had the same wickedness. It was his hedonism – Hannibal’s complete submission to impulse – just for doing deeply human things: to satisfy hunger, to collect and create, to end lives, _to play._ Hedonism is a kind of chaos in that way but Will found he wasn’t afraid of chaos. He resented that he was awakened by it and, now awake, resented that he would need it like a nutrient. That needing Hannibal was a sign of his own gluttony, his submission to hurt and be hurt.

They stayed like that until they fell asleep, hands loosely touching in a gentle echo of violence.

Violence is such an ancient thing; it was once considered more elegant. Perhaps a story like theirs could be found on some lost page of the Bible. 

  
  



	4. Pargo Frito

Hannibal handed Will a mug of water and broke the morning quiet. “On occasion, in Italy, I would go to the ocean at Livorno. As perhaps a way to self-defibrillate. I thought of you, imagined you at whatever shore you made a habit of wetting your fingers in those days. That I might touch you again by touching the sea.”

Will croaked out, peering over his book, “I sailed to you.” 

Hannibal looked over at Will, then, to see a bandaged and small man tanned by days of unfiltered sunlight. Whatever it was – the magnet and metal they were – they both felt it, even when it was agonizing. “Yes, you did.” Hannibal found his rib cage was being taken over by a shaking affection; he tried to swallow down the feeling of his soul expanding. “You’re not something I could have ever thought up.”

Will looked at him with eyes still glossy from exhaustion and opioids. “I wasn’t immediately changed by your presence in my life, Hannibal, but, when you met me, I think my blood had _just_ given up. Even my spit was tired of being itself.” Will bared his bottom teeth while he remembered the dull feeling of his sad and weighted veins rusting and tired of throbbing. He set his book down to run a hand over his face.

“When we first met, I saw a noiseful mind defensive of its right to privacy. I suspect I saw a glint of what you were hiding. Distrust, disloyalty, hallucination, all forms of insubordination. A rejection of the _way of things_ in an effort to _make_ – rather than _find_ – truth.”

Will’s voice shook out a choked whisper, “I was lonely.”

“So was I.” Hannibal shifted closer, but remained far enough away to leave option and freedom between them. “You know, your silences are you, too, Will. When you imagine you are best concealed. You self-confess there, too.”

Will’s eyes watched Hannibal’s movements and his gaze flicked around his face – but he didn’t find anything to say.

He continued, speaking softer now, “are you finished with your self-deprived attitudes or do you have more hiding to do?”

Will knew what he was asking and chose not to feign ignorance or reply with a counter question. They held each other’s heated look. He wasn’t afraid of loving a man, even _this_ man, but he was pulled apart by too many uncertainties to add another source of anxiety. He had climbed out of too many quiets to abandon his hold on this one now. Will whispered to Hannibal’s mouth, “I have some more hiding to do.”

Hannibal was both patient and impatient for Will. Greedy but willing to wait forever if he knew he must. This was not a string he needed to tug at. He spoke back to Will’s mouth, “very well. If hiding is what you need, then I can speak to you through the door.” He smiled with a blinding warmth. “I think, even if we never touch, we are lovers now.”

Will agreed with that more than he thought he would.

  
  


Hannibal sat at the controls that day.

  
  
  


\-----

  
  
  


On the eighth day at sea, it rained hard. It wasn’t anything close to a storm, but the sheets of rain drummed up enough on the deck to completely obstruct their vision. Will decided it was best to find the nearest island port. Within the hour, they were docked in Clarence Town, guided by a quaint lighthouse and the dock’s evening lamps. They presented their passports to an officer who seemed equally eager to get out of the downpour, so he didn’t enforce the area’s general rule to find residence on land if they promised to be gone the next morning.

  
  


Hannibal decided to make a bed out of blankets on the floor in the cabin, which was an enticing alternative to sleeping half upright on the cushioned bench. Luckily, they were less concerned with their wounds and fragility now that they were approaching two weeks since the fall, so it was more the fact that they weren’t twenty anymore that made the sink down to the floor difficult.

“My ass is going to hurt tomorrow,” Hannibal huffed out after changing out of his wet sweater into a generic blue t-shirt. He didn’t bother replacing his wet jeans when he shed them to get comfortable on the floor.

Will couldn’t help but burst in nodding laughter, grateful to see this edged and casual side of Hannibal. Neither man was ready for sleep but they leaned up against the paneling of the cabin’s counter space, their shoulders touching.

Will spoke through his smile, “I’m already missing this time.”

“We’re not even halfway there. You still have time to get sick of me,” Hannibal laughed toward the side of Will’s face.

Will turned to look back. “When we were apart, I was surprised sometimes to hear my voice sound the same as it did before you. I felt like I’d look down and my thumbprints would be gone or, uh–”

“Or that maybe they’d be the same as mine,” Hannibal supplemented. He opened his right hand on his lap, giving Will the option to take it or leave it empty.

He took it, hoping their clammy skin would become warm soon with the cabin door shut.

Rain alternated between drums and slams on the roof and deck and, by 9pm, the streets were deserted.

Hannibal separated their hands to switch off the cabin lights and to remove Will’s rain-soaked shirt. He came back to the floor to sit even closer to Will, tilted to observe him in his vaguely reptilian way.

Will shifted toward Hannibal to bend into a lazy embrace, both with their heads on the other’s shoulder, breathing in the hot and wet skin there until it became a small bubble of humidity. Will cautiously pressed his mouth to Hannibal’s neck and did with his bottom lip what a thumb might do to the back of a held hand. Hannibal, too, did not kiss Will’s neck, but his hot breath from his nose and mouth seared into his skin. They stayed like that – meditating on breath and other signs of living – for several minutes before Will pulled himself back to look the other man in the eyes. There was no more hiding. Not now, not after plunging into the sea and seeking that very same ocean out as their life giver, as their delivery to their next home. 

He leaned forward to press their foreheads together, their noses locked to the side of the other’s, their breath intertwining the way air of the same temperature can become indivisible. Air, water, fire. All things, like them, that are indivisible once combined. Even now, Hannibal had a profound patience. This wasn’t a transitional moment.

When they finally did touch their lips together, they immediately slid into place. Both wondering if they’d ever be able to stop now that they started - resigning to the thought that they may have to breathe through their noses for the rest of their lives. Hannibal felt an exhale roll through him that swept all the heavy from his lungs to tremble out through questioning fingertips. Will felt a grateful sob start in his stomach. It was a desperation that rattled through him, turning into a shiver and a flutter-fast heartbeat. They were both activated, desperate to become the same body, to start paying an unrescuable debt for all of the time they spent not touching each other. And that’s all they did for hours, sliding down to lay beside each other in their makeshift bed. They barely broke their mouths apart, only touched skin with dragged fingertips along the other’s body, only memorizing the feel of the other, drifting across goosebumps like reading braille. _No one will know you better than I know you,_ they both thought. The two of them fell asleep like that, noses still pressed together, necks and spines destined to ache in the morning.

The only light came from the beams that guided them to the dock, now muted by fogged windows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yayy  
> if you like fanart, i also paint and post on my instagram page @mjdqi
> 
> pargo frito is one of my favorite foods  
> there is a lot of story left, i've barely gotten to any meat (ha) of it :)


	5. Ron Ponche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following day

When the sun rose, it shone an unfamiliar blue through the steam in their windows.

Will woke to a throbbing headache and sting in the tendons of his neck that not so delicately reminded him of his age. Morning is rarely delicate. For the first waking since the fall, he remembered to lift his left arm to his eyes rather than calling upon his broken right side. His face held the dew of their cabin’s humidity after a night of breath and condensation; he opted to leave it on his skin.

Will looked over at the sleeping man beside him and recalled the way a sleeping beast huffs through its nose. Will felt everything for him: affection, envy, pity, contempt, attraction, need, loss, rage. It wasn’t a mirror he saw in Hannibal; he loathed that he found him interesting. That he at last met another hidden person who was also begging to be seen, to be accepted by someone willing to acknowledge how _correctness_ can be challenged. He saw a man mostly sewn together by books and his delight in bearing witness to crumbling. He wondered if he prayed or if he simply found inspiration in something that created and destroyed whatever He wanted.

Will also wondered if they’d ever touch again or if that night was the necessary end to the consummation they started on the cliffside. Even now, he was unconvinced that the loving was the hard and unfortunate part if they could do that part by accident every day. It really is just something that happens.

As he watched the deep breaths of a mortal, sleeping man beside him who, in his slumber, still protectively gripped around his gunshot wound, Will decided that he did not believe in God. He believed in choice and happenings, that human survival is mostly involuntary. Breathing and heartbeat and genetically coded dodging of danger were part of a machine to keep the mind alive.

Will thought, _and yet we disown our machines. Am I so disgusted with my humanity and my mortality that I find it profane to be as I am? Man owes life to the involuntary muscles I condemned in trying to drown my nature. The soul is the chemical that becomes the answer to our will - ever in flux - to survive. And the soul whispers to the heart: live as long as you can._

Hannibal’s eyes cracked open. After a single second, his mouth curled into a tired smile, remembering the night before. “I hope you rested. I had a lovely dream.”

Will nodded, attempting to scramble up to a sitting position. Hannibal let him leave the warmth, but reached out to rub his back before Will had a chance to stand.

  
  


Will turned as much as he could to look back down at him. “Do you pray?”

Hannibal mulled over his response. “Not to ask for anything. Not in any spoken way.”

“So, what, you just sit and think of God?”

“ _I accept reality and dare not question it_ ,” Hannibal quoted. “You question it.”

“I didn’t have to question reality before you,” Will bitterly replied.

“You didn’t _have_ to, but you did, didn’t you?” 

Will briefly wondered what it was like to be omniscient.

Hannibal got up, grunting most of the way, and slid into dry pants. “I’ll find a bakery, but stay there.” He held out a hand to encourage Will to rest again. “We have a few hours before anyone comes knocking.”

When he arrived back, he had two lukewarm coffees and a brown bag with a grease spot from beignets. He immediately sat at the controls despite suggesting they stay in bed. “I arranged to fill the tank at a port down the island, then we can pause again a little ways out on the water.”

Will finished his 8oz of coffee and drifted off.

When he woke again, he was alongside a dozing Hannibal, whose thumb was wedged between pages of a book: Laing’s _The Divided Self._ His face hung in a sleepy frown.

Will reached out to touch Hannibal’s temple, feeling the pulse there. Hannibal scrunched his face up childishly, not wanting to start the day yet.

He spoke without opening his eyes. “I wish the sun didn’t rise.”

“Just in general?” Will breathed out a laugh.

“I find the nights much more interesting.” Hannibal opened his eyes to watch Will just staring back at him. They shared a second of heated solemnity.

He continued rumbling, “today I was thinking –”

“You’ve had time for musings? You’ve been asleep.” Will chuckled.

Hannibal ignored the comment and placed his book away from where they laid on the floor. “In Botticelli’s Primavera, we see Zephyrus reaching for Chloris.” He ran his fingers through Will’s hair and they both closed their eyes. “It looks at first like a scene of terror, but that is a misinterpretation. When Zephyrus, the west wind, courts Chloris, their love – their marriage transforms Chloris into Flora, who rules over Spring.”

Will kept his eyes closed, feeling worshiped by the fingers in his hair.

Hannibal continued, “I know I am your west wind, Will, but you are mine as well.”

Will opened his eyes and saw the look of a man terrified to be vulnerable, but who gifted it to him anyway. Feeling strange and warm and cold, Will meekly replied, “yes. Yes, I know.”

After Will finished the doughy and messy beignets and they discussed the disappointments and discoveries in the books they’ve been reading, they reluctantly started their travel again. Will considered turning, sailing the wrong way, stranding them until they sink together to meet their grave in the Atlantic like they were supposed to. But he didn’t, and they spent the day naming the islands that they passed by, eagerly waiting for the shroud of darkness that will give them permission to touch again. It was far too hot and too paralyzing to be held close in the daylight. 

In the imitation of normalcy they slipped into, they recognized they both delight in tiny, simple tasks that require attention and intelligence; they do make deserving companions. Two brilliant men who can either tame or embolden the blood thirst of the other.

  
  



	6. Cebollas Amargas

Will was able to sit up now, though the tension in his shoulder and the pull of his scar tissue-painted cheek made it easier to lay down anyway. Part of the appeal of the trawler was its deck space, although it rarely stayed dry in the Caribbean. 

“What thoughts are we having among the stars tonight, Will?” Hannibal shuffled uneasily down beside him, gulping a pea protein powder shake he’d grown a tolerance for. 

Will tried his best to give him privacy around the subject of his colon, but it did make him laugh. He looked over to answer the question with some balance of appropriate tone and the whimsy he’d been avoiding. Seeing Hannibal’s open and patient stare, Will sobered a bit into some quiet honesty. “As much as I’m expanding, the universe reminds me that even the sprawl that swallows me whole is just that of one man in the span of his lifetime.”

“Does it hurt you to live down here in the relativity?” Hannibal can’t help but play psychiatrist.

Will winced at the habit. “I think it is a… _hubristic_ human trait to find relativity among each other and never consider ourselves relative to the universes.”

“It does seem rather disrespectful to the home provided for us if we look only to other people to see our shape reflected back.” Hannibal looked up at the stars, too.

Will smiled out an idea, “let’s call it ‘living laterally.’”

Hannibal nodded. “We forget that we ourselves are things floating in space.”

The thought made Will hurt less. It certainly clipped through the metal of one particular mental shackle. The people they left behind – dead or neglected – they are also animals capable of adaptation and their own healing. _Everyone dies,_ Will spoke this in his head like a hymn, _we’re all just things in space_. He found nihilism helped him stomach the filth he’d eventually come to be content with.

Hannibal set aside his mug and laid close to Will, still and supine like a married couple in their graves.

“If I were to put you to words, dear Will, I would never stop speaking.”

“I think I can imagine that,” Will breathed a laugh.

“Oh, are thoughts ever something _you_ run out of?” 

“No, I don’t run out of thinking. _Words_ , however…” He joked.

“They sit too heavy in your mouth.”

 _It’s a terrifying and sickly feeling to be seen_ , Will thought, _but it’s also a relief to set down something so heavy._

“You seem to know who I am when you’re not putting ideas in my head.”

“It’s hard not to manipulate when one sees a powerful mind.”

“That’s… not as charming as you seem to think it is.” He turned his head to Hannibal, who was already looking back at him.

“Well, I am under your thumb as well.” 

“So your idea of an equal in a companion is someone who will poke and prod you right back?”

The corner of Hannibal’s mouth turned up.

“That’s a yes?” Will couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed they found a way to communicate in a language other than cutting or worshiping the flesh: shaping and firing clay. Will decided that was certainly worse. What an anemic life he’d lead without him. Maybe someday in the distant future he would miss the familiar anemia of loneliness and hiding but, whenever they were touching, that felt like a poisonous, pointless thought.

  
  


\----

\----

  
  


Will sat at the controls that day while Hannibal dozed on the cushioned bench and busied himself with wound care in the bathroom. He was probably on his way to being alright – he just had to find comfort with another unsatisfying ugly scar on his body. There was nothing else to fidget with. No cooking to do. No spices or visual flare. Idle hands were a kind of small humiliation to both of them.

While Hannibal stood in the open door frame of the cabin, Will remembered their conversation from the night before, continuing it as though it never stopped. “In my reflection – I didn’t see a body that belonged to me but some unsightly portrait hanging from where my eyes peeked out. I was… not my own possession.” Will shifted his jaw. “But you had no right to reveal me. Don’t act like you had some moral imperative.”

Hannibal didn’t want to be carved at today, but he went along with the conversation. “Pulling at the canvas threads was bloody but liberating. All birth is.”

“I think you did it just to prove that you could. You were just lonely and – and _bored_.”

“Will, you know as well as I do that loneliness and boredom are tortures to the mind. That’s why we avoid prison.”

Will swallowed. He wanted to say _I couldn’t avoid prison, you saw to that._ But what he wanted more was to hold and be held by him. To touch him and make him feel loved now.

Will reached out for Hannibal, tugging him across the two steps that separated them. He watched his mouth open in the way a sad-but-too-clever person prepares to counter another verbal spar. Will pulled him down to press their lips together just to separate again. “Please stay with me.” It wasn’t in apology or gratitude. “Please, stay.” A confession of need and intention.

Hannibal nodded, kissing back. “I’ll stay.”

They continued on asking and answering like the humming repetitions of a priest and his congregation. It soon became reverent in a different way, making promise into contract with a language other than violence. They tried to find grandeur in their intimate moments together, dignity in making the other feel good (and liked and wanted), but Will’s new gangliness from the slingless cast and increasingly able (but still altogether in-the-way) leg made their affections a clumsy thing. In that way, it felt more celebratory and honest – a new dynamic for the both of them. It was the most harmonious they could be.

\----

They laid together on the deck to enjoy the brief cloudless sunlight near noon.

“Do you still think of killing me, Will?”

He didn’t wait a moment before responding. “Yes.”

“You said you’d kill me with your hands. Has that changed?”

“I _think_ of killing you, but I’m not sure I could now. Not unless I go, too.”

“So we’d both go down bleeding,” Hannibal smirked.

“Or drowning.” They shared a smile. That _was_ a vow of some kind and it felt more appropriately ceremonial than the day Will took off his ring. “I think I’d want to watch your heart beating.” Will didn’t look him in the eyes when he said it.

“You would open me up? Crack my ribcage?” Hannibal was moved in some perverse way. “I don’t have much need at all to go out whispered to and held… to be claimed by age and only _then_ mortality. I don’t care how many times I must be taken to or from death, so long as it is you doing the killing or the saving, it will always feel like a kind of restoration.”

“Do _you_ think of killing me?” Will whispered, bending to rest his head on Hannibal’s stomach, as though the wound there had its own answer.

He took a long breath before responding, “I hope it doesn’t sound selfish, but I can’t be in a world in which you are dead, Will. Not for a second. What a sad, unsaturated place that would be.” He took Will’s hand and shaped it into a fist, placing it over his gut, like a phantom blade was curled in his fingers and was cutting him open. “I demand to go first.”

“I think.” Will swallowed a quivering whisper while he sat up. The words were coming out as though tugged from a coil, unravelling before he thought them. “I think I could watch you die. I might even enjoy it.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “But – I couldn’t bear you being dead. The world isn’t better with us in it, Hannibal, but if you were gone, I’d be a shadow of myself again. Less than that. Condemned to speak from underwater.” Will knew that Hannibal had become another life muscle now, up there nestled by the heart and lungs. He wanted to cry at the thought. 

He had been so concerned with morality in consumption yet he ate himself alive.

  
  


\--

Hannibal looked peacefully stoic at the control chair. Will wanted to ask him for his opinion on the book he’d heavily dogeared and penned in now, _The Divided Self_ . Something bothered Will. _Is Hannibal truly just reading this for the first time? Does he think I have schizo-typal tendencies beyond my infection? Does Hannibal? Does he see something the world doesn’t? Is that inherently bad? Does hallucination make us ill if it doesn’t trouble us?_

It made him sad for some reason. He flitted through ideas on the way morality and diagnostics and relativity have always intertwined, welcomed bias and condition when convenient. _Who is the lawmaker who says succinctly and definitively what makes righteousness? Wondering something is a lonely feeling when it isn't spoken._

  
  


That night, they docked in western Haiti, their final touch to land before Panama.


	7. Tamal de Olla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last stretch of time on the boat.  
> A lot of conversation and thought. They both think so much.

“So you’ve lived in Panama before?”

“Not long enough to say I ‘lived’ there but I’ve spent some time there, yes, getting things situated.”

Will had endless questions about Hannibal’s access to inherited wealth and his homes and his various identities. So many questions that he almost was embarrassed to even start. It seemed like Hannibal had roots deep in the earth all over the world while Will would admit that he just lifted right out of things.

Though, he supposed, Hannibal isn’t rooted so deep in the earth if his supposed equal _could_ lift right out.

Will began again, “how do you search in the same places for inspiration and always find it?”

“We always look at a place and try to find the ways it is just like home. In the nervous grabs at reflections, we see better what makes the world and ourselves.” Hannibal said it so confidently, it was clear he’d said it before. He looked over at Will fondly. “Besides, I don’t go to Florence to find inspiration. I return to find beauty, a beauty which I do not get tired of.” He kissed Will’s shoulder.

It was a small and reflexive act but they both froze like startled deer at the attempt to mimic a functional relationship, both wondering if they should bother. ‘Relationship’ implied a consistency and well-paced swell of affection into eventual stability. Those were not things they were capable of. Maybe in an effort to live in the ever-interesting, these little mundanities in adoration become something to flinch at.

Hannibal sensed that his impulse was seen as performative, that probably everything he’d ever do out of kindness to Will would be read as a veil over some unknown sinister true meaning. But he deeply wanted Will to reach for him less for survival and dependence – like a freezing man craves a fire – he wanted Will to reach for him in the way a man loves a man.

Maybe they both _had_ to huddle into the comfort of performative interaction because, yes, convention sometimes feels nice. They wouldn’t get an altar to mark their union more fitting than the bow of the ship that carried them across the same sea that resurrected them. And any ceremony to their type of devotion could not have a witness. Both Will and Hannibal knew they were tumbling through the same thought process and were comforted by their apparent arrivals at the same place: _reach for me._

They continued moving again like switching a film off of pause.

“Tell me about the house.” Will asked just to have something to talk about, but the way that Hannibal told him about the tile floors, the yard, the metal railings, the windows, the bedrooms, it felt personal. It seemed that he chose the house because he genuinely loved it and found it comforting. Will pieced together that calm and joy did not only come to Hannibal from things of glory like the cold and dramatic stone of cathedrals, but that it could come to him through the warmth and attention of the mud bricks of old abbeys, or through the haphazard shingles of their future home.

Will wondered if he was the mud brick or the stained glass. He decided to accept that, if he was something Hannibal couldn’t have planned for, he could simply walk alongside him in his mind just as flesh and blood make a brain. Maybe Hannibal wasn’t prepared with the right materials to ever build a real-feeling idea where Will stood next to him. _That’d explain his attempts to memorize my taste and feel – like I’m an electricity current that will inevitably shut off_ , Will thought, _Maybe I am._

He found it crude to try to fit the infinitely running train of his feelings for Hannibal into a word so small as ‘love,’ but that word was definitely crammed in there in the much longer definition of them. Maybe, if there was a single idea, it’d be closer to ‘my blood transfusion.’ Or some unwritten story in which the grim reaper comes to earth and he falls in love with the human he should have taken. A story in which he finds the scythe is glued to his hands.

\--

Will told stories of his favorite dock from his childhood. How he liked the way the barnacles looked a little different there. He shared funny memories from one stagnant and hot neighborhood on the bayou in the years he lived with an aunt. Will realized that he had a deeply buried fear that Hannibal would grow bored of him, but instead he looked affected and increasingly warm, like he wanted to live in Will’s history. Even if he swore or shared a particularly grimy tale, Hannibal listened with unbroken stares as though Will’s life was another cathedral where he might light a prayer candle.

Will added more emotions to his list of what Hannibal made him feel: _self-honoring, life-cherishing_.

He realized he _needed_ to be loved so ferociously in this way, that he might forgive Hannibal for anything if it meant he would be this deeply satisfied with life on earth. He was reminded that Hannibal is just a man and that maybe he could take meat from a human because he never forgot that he, too, was an animal. And in that way Hannibal unlocked a peace no one else could.

\--

They strolled through a street market in Dame Marie, with surprisingly few people staring at Will’s hobbling on his hard cast. It was mostly their foreignness and their whiteness that earned the two men curious stares – right in the eyes.

Hannibal charmed a few vendors with French and even managed to exchange English language books for some lower value booklets. One was a guidebook in Spanish for the Dominican Republic and the others were illustrated sea stories in French. Will considered that maybe the vendors would like to fiddle with English just as the two of them would fiddle with Spanish. It was a fleeting and sweet moment on land before they refueled and set off again.

They laid on the deck with closed eyes. Both men were becoming golden and spotted from all the bright days like these.

Will held up his right arm. “I’m not looking forward to the day that you take a saw to my casts.”

“Still wavering since the last time?” Hannibal laughed, knowing that of course Will wouldn’t forget the rotating saw to his skull _however blurry the memory was._

“Yes, still wavering.” He laughed with a voice crack and a large smile.

“I’m practiced but I’m hardly a hospital. That cast can be taken apart if left to soak for long enough.” He knew Will knew that, but it was fun to rib each other. “I will miss having you as my patient.”

“If we forget the week we had oozing and crusting wounds, I will eventually have nice memories of our times by the sink.”

“Signs of healing. But yes, as soon as we forget the taste and smell, I might look back fondly.”

They both sat in the feeling of flirtation and admiration. It wasn’t earned or deserved. Nothing in life really ever is in any controlled form.

“What’s the first thing you’d like to do when we reach land?” Will was in the mood to daydream.

“I think we can buy a spot at the dock for a night or two before trading in the ship. That’s too much to stress over right away.”  
“Agreed.”

“Then we can rent a car, drop our belongings at the house, and walk around a bit. I’d like to walk enough to make up for all this time spent still. And I’d like to just stand in the shower for as long as it takes to make up for sink bathing with hand soap and lavender shampoo.” He smiled with his eyes closed toward the sun.

“That sounds nice.” Will joined him in that for a moment.

Hannibal swallowed and spoke again, “I’d also like to start weaning off of painkillers.”

Will knew what he was implying. They liked to touch and revel in each other so far, but the promise to be completely un-stunted by medication would allow for touch in a new way. It could shift them from nameless intimacy to confronting sexuality and the _eventfulness_ typical of developing romance. _Is that what this is? Romance?_

“Yes, that’s definitely something to think about,” Will said, dumbly. _Okay, maybe one thing between us would be different on land._

Hannibal almost looked confused – thoughtfully trying to categorize Will’s lack of enthusiasm for potential release as bashfulness or reluctance. _Will isn't bashful._ He didn’t say anything but he hummed a little self-consciously.

Will’s voice was a higher pitch when he spoke again. “Y’know,” – he cleared his throat – “I’m not buried here. In the sea.”

Hannibal met his look with one open eye and his mouth curled down, patient to see where Will was headed.

“I think I died before then. Before the Dragon, before loving Molly. Before Italy.”

Hannibal tried to find a sound, but whispered, “when – when did you die?”

“When I heard your voice on the phone. The night I bled on your kitchen floor next to Abigail.” Her name carved up his mouth even now.

“I didn’t want you to die.”

“You wanted to kill someone in me.” Will knew that much.

“And I was successful?”

“No. I’ve usually lived _despite_ you.” He spit it out in a bitter way. “But when I woke up, I didn’t even need to see the night to know that… everything in my life – all the planets were you.”

“I’ve felt for a long time that all three of us are buried in that house." Hannibal wanted to be a man with no regrets, but he regretted treating Abigail as a gift rather than a girl. "Will, I’m not in the habit of mourning many lives. But I can say that you would be mourned so greatly by the earth, you’d even be missed by the grisly God that took you.” Hannibal's eyes teared up microscopically.

The affection made Will a little sick knowing the mental transition to it. “If we climbed from the graves, then who are we now?”

“Jonas Antinis and Gabriel Walker.” Hannibal smiled bigger than Will may have ever seen. A man giddy to finally have metabolized both of their poisons.

They pressed their mouths together even though it tasted sad. Two weepy men damned to have an almost lovely reason to stay alive.


	8. Plátanos Maduros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more dialogue. They finally get settled on land and the controlled environment of their time on the ship begins to dissolve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a Spanish language slur.  
> On record: I am gay, Latino, and feeling whimsical.

The day before they made it to shore, Will broke the calm silence they’d been sitting in for over an hour.

  
  


“Y’know, I’m glad you didn’t kill Alana.”

Hannibal didn’t lift his eyes from his book. “Is that so?”

“What would be the point? Margot doesn’t need more pain in her life, surely you can agree with that.”

“You sound as though you’re still trying to convince me not to.”

“I have a thorough understanding of how long you can wait for gratification. Please, break this promise. You liked Alana, I liked Alana. She looked out for me.” He pictured her chasing after Winston to his home again and again.

Hannibal was silent for several moments and Will almost thought he was never going to respond before he spoke again. “Okay. I’d like to forget our tangle with the Verger’s anyhow. It was quite an… unpleasant time.”

Will lifted his eyebrows in agreement and swiveled back to the controls. “Quite.” A few seconds later, Will swiveled around again, which caused Hannibal to finally look up from his book. Will’s voice cracked. “So, you speak Spanish, right?”  
  
  


\----

  
  
  
  


“Hello this is my friend Jonas. Hello this is my friend Jonas and I am Gabriel. Hi, I am Gabriel.”

“Hello Gabriel. I am Jonas.” Hannibal played along in the rehearsal while he packed. Will sat at the controls.

“Hola, mucho gusto. Soy Gabriel y este es mi amigo, Jonas.”

“Me llamo Jonas y este es mi compañero de cuarto, Gabriel.” The vowels in Hannibal’s Spanish still curled around his tongue in his familiar Baltic tinge.

“Compañero de cuarto? Roommate?” Will laughed. “I think you’re going to raise more suspicion if you introduce another middle aged man as your 'roommate.' Might as well decide on less heavy-handed coding, doctor.”

“‘Friend’ sounds as though we just met in the street somewhere. If you are afraid of being perceived as gay, you could always introduce me as your doctor.”

Will brushed off the obvious attempt to irk him. He wondered about the potential safety for them. And if safety was something Hannibal ever worried about. “Okay then we’re partners. What’s the word for partner?”

“Let’s say ‘compañero.’”

“Hola, este es mi compañero Gabriel.”

“ _You_ are Gabriel, I’m Jonas.”

Will squeezed his eyes shut. “After all of your rash decisions and dramatic stages, _I’m_ going to put us in jail for forgetting our identities.”

“This week we will practice until you are annoyed by it. It will be fine.” Hannibal flicked him in the scar on his cheek.

“Any backstory?”

Hannibal mulled it over for a moment. “We met in university studying psychology until our fields took us in different academic directions.”

“Hola, soy Gabriel y esta – hola, soy Gabriel y es _te_ es mi compañero, Jonas.”

“Okay, Gabriel, that’s enough for now. We are only thirty minutes from Colón.” Hannibal snapped his fingers on both of his hands as he tried to refocus himself. Something he picked up from Will.

  
  
\--  
  
  
  


They could leave their blankets, toiletries, and dishes on the boat to be picked up later in the week. They would have better replacements for all of those waiting for them at the new place. The tasks for the day were: pass through customs, rent a space at the dock, rent a car, drive to their home outside of Panama City, and then spend the rest of the evening striving for normalcy.

  
  
  


\----

  
  
  


Will rubbed his dry eyes while he spoke, “I want to be on land and in a bed. But I also want to stay on this boat forever.”

Hannibal didn’t miss a beat before replying. “Well, the country is an isthmus and, if the rumors are true, it has quite a famous canal, so there are many opportunities should we choose to sink into the water. Just say the word and we can die tomorrow.”

Will wanted to say something witty or even take him up on his offer instead of reaching up and putting a tired hand on Hannibal’s chest, but, in his exhaustion, that was all he could manage.

They were loudly jolted apart by a screaming conversation between two dock managers. “Oye, tengo que llamarla pero estes putos maricones van a coger aquí en frente de todo el mundo!”

  
  


“Excuse me,” Hannibal whispered to Will before he swiftly climbed down onto the dock to stride over to the man.

  
  


“Hola.”

The dock manager looked a little taken aback by Hannibal’s greeting, but he was still under the impression his slurs went unheard. “Hola, ¿cómo puedo ayudarles?” He was compelled to do his job, but couldn’t help radiating a little impatience.

  
  


Until Hannibal stepped very close to him. “Ya alquilé este espacio pero… quiero saber si trabajas aquí cada día.”

“Salvo los domingos.” The man’s nostrils flared, probably sensing a threat behind this stranger’s passive curiosity about his schedule.

“Pues, tal vez te vamos a ver.”

“... tal vez.” The man’s face twisted in confusion and the hum of fear while Hannibal tilted a small nod in his direction and turned back.

  
  
  


Will could barely hear the conversation and didn’t speak Spanish but could understand the body language of terror and implication from any distance.

Hannibal quickly sauntered back to the boat, already looking breezy and in his element. At Will’s raised eyebrow, he simply offered, “just like to keep track of people.”

“What does that mean, Hannibal?”

Hannibal barely flicked his eyes to Will while they both gathered their necessary bags and documents. “He said a rather nasty word.”

“You’ll kill him because he said a swear,” Will deadpanned but didn’t feel entirely bothered.

  
  


“It wasn’t a swear.” He threw a small illegible look at Will and, at the understanding, they both turned back to what they were doing.

Will felt stupid that he imagined his connection to Hannibal would remain an unwitnessed, uncategorized thing, but he was now faced with the reality that, yes, they were going to be sorted by the world.

Hannibal busied himself quietly, now balancing his relief in getting settled in a new home and the general itch that came from wanting to harm someone.

  
  
  


Will was reminded of a quote and he quietly mouthed it to himself. _Hunger is insolent and will be fed._

  
  


Hannibal mentally chastised himself for dreaming of a solid food diet. “Soup.” He chuckled quietly.

  
  


\----

  
  
  
  


It took them about an hour to cross province lines and to make it through the traffic of the outer city. The highway was winding in a way that compensated for the area’s hills and lakes.

 _Even green is different here,_ Will thought, _alluvial soil. Lakes, slopes, and ocean on both sides._ Will felt a sigh of exhaustion and gratitude slip out of his chest. _This will be a lovely life. No one will come looking. Clean bed hot shower fresh clothes._ Will nearly dozed off into the words of his own hymnal. The joy – the shuddering visceral joy – that Hannibal could give him was… _unexpected_.

  
  
  
  


Hannibal didn’t look over at Will before he spoke through the car’s quiet. “I should warn you, Will: you might find yourself becoming a different person here. In new lands and languages, we transform. Although, this type of shedding is less bloody than you’re used to.”

“Can’t wait.” It wasn’t clear to Will if he wanted to transform again so soon, but maybe in this new life he would be adaptable.

“Feeling grumpy are we?” Hannibal smiled to himself and seemed to drift with his own train of thought as well.

  
  
  


They turned onto Calle Verde, a small neighborhood with just three houses. The architecture of the houses would have a sort of placeless-ness if they weren’t shrouded by rain forest vegetation and mostly clay soil.

Their single story house was a touch more hidden by palms and a stout guava tree. The driveway was gravel and the stone path to the pink front door was weaved with long emerald grass. Will hoped they wouldn’t trim the yard. He liked nature to grow where it pleased.

The place didn’t quite remind him of Hannibal, but maybe they still had a lot to learn about each other. He watched as Hannibal searched his clothes for the key. _This man who was once a respected surgeon and infamous killer also patted his pockets for his keys._ Will swallowed a smile when his mind took him to an image of Hannibal with a lanyard around his neck. _That’s a step too far for him maybe._

  
  


The interiors were closer to what he imagined of the place. There were, as Hannibal described, beige and maroon ceramic tiles on the floor that met bright white walls. In this early evening light, the lamps and windows made the rooms glow orange. There were wooden dining room chairs partly visible from the mudroom. In the time Will spent staring from the door frame, Hannibal made the three trips needed from the car and huffed a sigh when he was finally able to close the front door behind them.

  
  
  


After switching on the water pump, Hannibal found a pen and pad of paper in the top drawer of a small desk in the hall and began to write.

Will stiffly walked to the desk to read over his shoulder.

“This just says ‘bicycle.’”

Hannibal jumped a little upon hearing the voice so close behind him. “Yes.”

“Computer password or…?”

“I want to buy a bicycle.”

“That can’t be it.”

“Am I allowed my little methods to avoid forgetfulness, Will, or must I always entertain you with my wit?” He smirked and pulled out the desk chair for Will to sit on.

Taking the seat, Will said again through a breathy chuckle, “no, that can’t be it.”

“Sorry, it must be a delicate subject for you.” Hannibal pointed the back of the pen at Will’s leg cast and walked through a door in the hall, looking very pleased with himself.

_Is this who Hannibal is in Panama? I don't mind.  
_

When Will heard the shower start, his instinct was to join Hannibal but, unless he wanted to not so romantically seal off his casts with plastic bags, that was a non-option. He decided to explore more of the house. Will turned away from the living room, kitchen, and dining areas to walk down the narrow hall. With its doors closed, the only light came from the window at the end. Typical of Latin America, the same tile floor ran uninterrupted throughout the house. He found a laundry room, two bedrooms, a linen closet, and a study with a larger desk and, thankfully, a large collection of books.

The bedrooms didn’t have any pillows or sheets on the mattresses, but their closets had plenty of clothing options.

\---

Eventually, Hannibal emerged from the shower, having created a humidity in the bathroom that rivaled that of Colón.

Will traded places with him to find the tub already half-filled. It was probably as a courtesy in consideration of his two casted limbs, but it reminded Will of the depth you might draw for a toddler. He filled the bath higher purely in passive aggression.

  
  


\---

He returned to the master bedroom to see Hannibal half-sleeping among fresh white linens. There was a shirt and a pair of silken boxers presumably laid out for him on the other side of the bed. While wrestling into them, Hannibal squinted his eyes slightly open toward him and held out a palm to guide him into bed like one would help a nobleman off a carriage. _Seems like he won’t lose all his regal flare in domesticity,_ Will thought.

He glanced around the room again, taking in the subtle pewter detailing in the dark wooden headboard before he noticed several bottles on their nightstands. Hannibal was offering an option and asking a question.

Will picked up what had grown to be his personal favorite, hydrocodone, and pointedly took a single pill with the glass of water. They were both aware that this was half his normal dose. They shared a smile – now with the comfort of freshly and vigorously brushed teeth – and fell asleep before the sun set all the way, their bodies joined only at the fingertips.

  
  



	9. Sofrito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back.”  
> ― Henry James

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same warnings as last chapter but that's.... the last time :)

Will woke to Hannibal already sitting up in bed, writing confidently in his sketchbook. He watched the white fan rotate rhythmically above their heads for a few moments before moving towards him. Will put together that their predetermined sides of the bed were left over from Hannibal’s tradition of laying on Will’s unbroken side on the ship; wondered if this was their normal. And how long normal could last.

The other man noticed Will’s shifting and set his notebook on the nightstand.

Cuddling wasn’t really something either of them knew how to do in any genuine way and it was hard still to find coordination during their healing, but they each lingered when they woke, appreciating the way the other speaks..

“Good morning.” Hannibal turned his head to look down at the huddling man. “You always seem troubled by sleep. As though it’s the hardest thing you do.”

“It… might be.” Will smiled a little grimly at the ceiling again before Hannibal spoke again.

“Are you attracted to me, Will?”

He was a little startled by the sudden pivot in conversation, but this was typical in the chance that one was already up and thinking. “Seems like a strange question to ask.”

“I wonder if your saddling up to my side is from a need to be touched and held or a _desire_ to be… touched and held by _me._ ”

“Feeling conflicted with my sexuality is not anywhere near the top of the list of things I wonder when I’m next to you. Is that what you’re asking?”

“I am asking if you want me as much as you seem to need me.”

“I want you. Because I need you. It hurts less when I just accept the fact.”

Hannibal ran a gentle finger over Will’s eyebrow. “We’re all we have now.”

“By our own design. Well, yours mostly.” The younger man closed his eyes at the touch.

“Henry James believed there is a ‘hush in which something gathers or crouches.’ The time after the hush, is what he referred to as ‘the spring of the beast.’ You were living life in the crouch. This life is your spring forward.” Hannibal slid down to get closer to Will. “What do you spring to?”

“James also spoke of the ‘charm of stillness.’” He opened his eyes again and squinted at Hannibal in his periphery before turning towards him with a smile.

“I don’t think stillness is something so charming and neither do you.” Hannibal put his thumb on Will’s bottom lip. “I am prepared to give you everything, Will. Do you _want_ it?”

  
  


Will nodded and whispered.

“Yes.”

This time, when they pressed their bodies and mouths together, it was less in an attempt to blur with the other. Touch for them may have started as a display of ownership, a proof of sight – that no one could reach through the curtain quite like they could. Today it was two people doing what lovers do.

As their breath grew heavier, Hannibal interrupted, “perhaps when your casts are off.”

Unsaid: _we’ll continue in that particular direction when we are unhindered by medication._

  
  


Will didn’t disagree. “What were you writing just now? When I woke up.”

“My thoughts.”

“On…”

“Pathology of the mind.”

“Ah, reflections on your outdated book.” 

“Opinions don’t expire. They become less universal.”

“Unless they’re built on a foundation of expired science.”

Hannibal kept speaking as though he was never challenged, “diagnostics are a desperate grab for order.”

“That's a little reductive for someone who worked in psychiatry.”

“Consider how many fewer disorders we would find a name for if proper function was based less upon utility of humans for working roles’ behavior and instead was dependent on an individual's self reported happiness.”

Will skeptically furrowed his brow. “Well I think the public might still nit pick _your_ behavior but I see your point.” 

“Perhaps if we drew fewer lines in general, taboo would start to crumble.” Hannibal spoke smugly but didn’t outright disagree.

Will offered a teasing smile. “Still…” 

Instead of taking the bait toward what would be a circular and unproductive conversation, Hannibal pulled Will closer by his hips.

They spent the morning in bed.

  
  
  


\-----------

  
  
  


Their first stop that afternoon was at the used bookstore in western Panama City.

“I’d like to find some Spanish language novels here.”

“Did the traveler’s guide leave you with some gaps?” Hannibal jokingly feigned surprise.

“If anyone has any questions about beaches and museums in the Dominican Republic, I think I'd be able to navigate them pretty well.”

“You'd be just the man to ask” His eyes glinted back.

“But I'm gonna need more help for the remaining handful of things I don’t know.” 

They both smiled in a way that was foreign to the other and to themselves. 

Which was probably what led them to the next extension of conversation.

“Are you happy here, Will?” Hannibal’s look was warm but intense.

“In the mood for Q&A today?” Will dragged his fingers along the lined up book spines.

“It seems you’re in the mood for Q&Q. Or evasion.”

They both smirked. _Touché._

“I don’t know… we're barely settled.”

“It's always a season of transition. We can’t just wait for spring and autumn.” He pinched Will’s earlobe affectionately but patronizingly. “Do you recognize joy when it comes? I'd argue we don't always recognize roots when they come.”

“I like stability,” Will threw back.

“Do you?” With a bright eyed and smug smile, Hannibal disappeared around the shelves.

  
  


\---------

  
  


Their next stop was the dock again.

  
  


Will and Hannibal (mostly Hannibal) haggled with the administrator on the value price of their trawler. It wasn’t in great condition and needed some tending to after their long sail, but they weren’t in great condition either and couldn’t do much. They got the best return they could hope for, really.

When Hannibal pulled a purchase catalog off the wall, Will responded, “I’m not going to trade in for a deck boat this time around. I think I might buy one cheap in the city, fix it up. Simple engine.” He shrugged, feeling a little sentimental that he was planning a project with their future in mind. “It’d be something to do.”

“That sounds nice.” Hannibal tried to offer a connected warmth, but his eyesight flicked over to the rude man from the day before.

_Time to poke the beast I guess._

They, in no attempt to act casual, walked down the dock toward him.

“Aquí están estes tragasables otra vez,” the man muttered, rolling his eyes.

Hannibal clenched his jaw, having heard and understood whatever derogatory was mumbled.

 _Bat ears. I guess that should be expected with a skill for languages and music_ , Will considered.

“Hola señores,” he greeted them, looking displeased.

“Ah, buenas tardes,” Hannibal began, “buscamos un bar en la vecindad, pero no conocemos el área. ¿Nos puedes ayudar?”

“No tenemos bares para los cuecos.”

Will saw something alter in Hannibal’s expression, possibly a glimpse into the moment he reduces into an animal predator. The man didn’t seem to notice.

The man, unknowingly purchasing a graveyard plot, continued. “Los turistas siempre vienen a Panamá pa’ mamar pinga. Oye, vuelve a tu país, cola.”

Will could barely understand the conversation, but, by the cadence, he pieced together that the man was hurling slurs.

Intrigued by the lack of hospitality, Hannibal took a small step forward and eyed the man’s name tag. “Arán. Gracias por tu ayuda.”

After departing with a pleasantry – and likely leaving another chill down Arán’s spine – the pair left through the front gate.

  
  


\-------

  
  


The next stop was the corner store by the dock. It was charming and had a small wall of key-chains filled with tiny license plates and metallic palm trees. Will didn’t immediately understand why they were purchasing groceries this far from home, but as he watched Hannibal purchase garlic, herbs, plantains, and limes with no central focus, he assembled the partial thoughts.

Will whispered, partially to himself. “It’s Saturday.”

Hannibal heard the whisper and leaned slightly to whisper back. Despite being a small town, Colón was a tourist attraction for its old Spanish architecture and view of the Atlantic, so it was possible there would be English speakers in the vicinity. 

“No CCTV. He assured me he doesn’t work Sundays, which means we have about 30 hours before he’s late for work. He doesn’t strike me as a churchgoer. Would you agree?”

_It figures that Hannibal is good at keeping his voice low and measured._

Will thought for a moment. “Not a churchgoer. He’s unmarried but might be missed by a family member bound to him through family obligation. Wouldn’t be a sibling. Maybe a mother?”

“A man who works six days a week, she would probably not assume much if he missed her call.”

“Here’s hoping.”

  
  


\--------

  
  


After packing the trunk with their two small cloth bags, Will saw the much larger opaque plastic one. It took about half a mental jump to guess Hannibal had planned this outing since their arrival. Selling the trawler today was simply a convenience. _Two birds, one stone._

  
  


They walked the short distance back to the front gate and administrator’s office on the dock.

  
  


The same representative from their sale greeted them with an apologetic smile. “Perdón, señores, pero acabamos de cerrar por la noche.”

_Closed for the night._

Hannibal's human mask which had replaced the animal now transformed again into the Hannibal who hosted dinner parties and charmed old money Baltimore women. “Ah, mi amigo aquí es un profesor y olvidó sus papeles en mi bota! Sólo necesitamos cinco minutos para buscarlos.”

Will buried a scoff at being indicated as _amigo_ but there was a comfort that it was no doubt sewn into another absurd lie.

The young woman hesitated for less than five seconds. “Bueno, em, tengo que asegurar las puertas pero si encuentras el director, él lo puede hacer.”

She was already putting her purse string over her shoulder.

Hannibal winked. “Te prometo, señora.”

“Ok, que tengan una buena noche!”

They both waved the front desk manager goodbye and she left for the night. “She said she is usually the one who locks the doors but I promised her we’d find the dock manager to do it for her.” He looked eagerly at Will, putting his hands on his shoulders. “What do you say, dear, should we find the dock manager?”

  
  
  


“That was… weirdly simple.”

“I have a strange revelation for you that you may have forgotten despite your years studying criminology and psychoanalysis: people place a lot of trust in kind, handsome men.”

“It’s just, uh, strange to find relief in what unsettles others.” _Officially finding myself on the subject side of my field of study._

“Betray empathy. Focus on the relief.” Hannibal patted Will’s shoulder and they walked along the wood boards, now shadowed in navy dark.

Will scanned the dock for weapons of opportunity. _Thick ropes, tarps, kitschy decorative anchor._

  
  
  
  
  


“I will be quick.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Hannibal walked up behind Arán, who was bent over assembling a bag to head home for the night. Hannibal deepened his voice, and softly uttered, “perdón.”

That was enough to startle the man to stand, where Hannibal swiftly – and leaving no time to grunt or protest – snapped Arán’s neck.

Will was so shocked and confused at the flare-less kill, he couldn’t find it in himself to be offended to be left out.

“Hannibal, please don’t assemble anything to be discovered by some poor tourist. If you draw attention as soon as we touch land, it will be seen as our flag on the moon.”

Hannibal stood up after flipping the dock manager onto his back, breathing heavy and looking at Will. “He’s a man worn down by a life of seeing masculinity as a prized virtue.” Hannibal smiled mischievously.

Will’s eyes didn’t move, but Hannibal sensed his skepticism.

“I do not plan to castrate him, Will, if that’s what you’re thinking. I will simply give him peace in death.”

Hannibal held out a hand to silently request the serrated blade. 

“I will take his arms.”

“You’re not doing it to honor his masculinity though.”

“No, the protein is for our healing flesh. Well, more specifically for soup.” He nearly giggled. He delighted in the occasional audience.

Will watched Hannibal messily saw his joint from the back, at the spot where the scapula met the humerus. It was remarkably quick and Will wished he could help more than just bagging the limbs, but Hannibal was used to working alone and Will still was unable to bend his knees with the cast. One day, they would exercise their mental planning and carnal drive, but this moment became more of a peek into Hannibal’s culinary rituals.

While Will stood watching, he was reminded of times he held wood in place while someone measured and drilled. They’d eventually work out a system to work with each other. They were quiet except for the sound of wet meat. “If you were to create an image for him in death, what would you have done?”

“I would cut his hair. Think of it as a way to chisel a quote on his temporary headstone.” He looked up from where he was working. “In a sense, it still says enough that he will be tied to a decorative anchor and lost under the dock that he spent his days walking. There is a sort of anonymity and habitual pain in prescribing to masculinity. Tonight, he will succumb.”

  
  


They both took in the scene. It was a strange kill, but ultimately a discarded body missing limbs wasn’t outstanding enough to make it beyond local news. No organs missing, so a search engine wouldn’t take their friends in the states to them. They dropped Arán, tied in ropes, into a far corner of the shadowed dock.

They were bloody on their hands and forearms, but they climbed right back onto the trawler they sold earlier in the day and washed up in the sink. It was… domestic. They’d hardly pass any DNA or blacklight inspection, but they wouldn’t grab attention.

They took Arán’s bag with them and locked the gates. No sense in the administrator losing her job. No sense in providing an obvious gaping clue to the timeline of his disappearance.

They threw his gate key off a lonely part of the highway – a measure Hannibal referred to as paranoid – and would sort out his bag when they got back home. He did, however, suggest they cut his arms into less immediately incriminating slabs of meat before storing them.

  
  
  
  


Neither man took their pills before sleep.


	10. Pierna de Cordero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter is lamb shank because I love to be on the nose.  
> This is just fluff honestly I love exploring their domesticity

The day that Will woke up to Hannibal softly basting his leg and arm casts with water, Hannibal explained the series of events that led to his waking in some kindly donated belts. How one of Tom’s sons was an over eager veterinary student who suggested cauterizing Hannibal’s colon. He instead opted to allow the risks of leaving sterile thread in the body. He explained how Will seemed to be awake but fell in and out during the lengthy process of resetting his tibia, radius, and shoulder. A small mercy gifted by his endorphins. Hannibal admitted to waning out of consciousness during his internal stitching, but became lucid enough to direct Tom through his external stitching. Tom was a rather thoughtful but intense retired naval officer, widower, and empty-nester, so he had a nurturing side if hidden by gripping and calloused hands.

“You fainted?” // “Not sure the mind wants us to see inside ourselves in that particular way. And, well, I bled a lot.” They shared a smile.

Hannibal also took the time to lean up and run a thumb over the scar in Will’s face. “I of course tended to this myself.” The scar would take another few months to turn completely white, but it lost its raw anger after the first week on the boat. He kept his thumb on Will’s cheek when he spoke again, “are you familiar with Rembrandt’s studies of head?”

“The series of his portraits imagining Jesus?”

“Yes. I think you’d look quite like that man as you age. The man who posed for him.”

Will laughed, trying to quiet several trains of thought.

The other man continued. “I look forward to it. Watching you age.” After admitting that, they met eyes.

Hannibal looked affectionate and… the mixture of certainty and vulnerability that comes with planning a future with someone.

Will looked up at the ceiling while he thought, wondering also if there was a better way to soften his plaster casts of gauze and newspaper than this. Though, Hannibal was thoughtful enough to lay towels down. And not make any references to preparing food. “I never – aging is not something I’ve thought much about. Being old I mean.”

“A characteristic of depression.” Hannibal caught eyes with an impatient Will. “Sorry, continue.”

“True, but it felt like something that would happen to everyone else but me. That I’d just _stop_ before then.”

“There is a hauntingly high probability that you will die of heart disease or cancer.”

“Seems unfitting for _you_ , though. To see you die of something so mundane.” Will looked down at Hannibal, who was now able to pretty successfully unravel the gauze from his weaker leg. He felt nearly overwhelmed in love, wrecked by the idea that he will, with cosmic certainty, be apart from this force sooner or later.

Hannibal sensed the nervous shift and chose to lighten the conversation. In his way. “Or I could simply be hit by a bus tomorrow.” He rotated Will’s ankle with doctor’s hands, searching for tenderness, and then ran two fingers along his bone, checking that it fused properly.

He scooted up Will’s body and, in a much less doctorly fashion, bracketed his hips to get a closer look at Will’s arm.

Will knew that he and Hannibal were woven together by history and blood and hunger and some otherworldly mental connection – so strong it made him wonder if they could stroll through each other’s dreams if they tried. But there was a part of Will that made homemade dog food, the part of him that liked the sun choppily glistening on water, that liked science and the smell of pine trees. At some point that part started to love Hannibal, too. Loved waking up next to him and laughing together. It was starting to become difficult to avoid or deny the inherent romance in domesticity and the warm love that is born among their spiritual vibrant lust. 

Since the night he truly became known, when all three of them were in some way buried in his kitchen, Hannibal grew less ashamed, less stifled by false charm, intellectualism, or his desperation to remain uncaged. Masking one’s identity is a sad and self-betraying place. He made the mistake of waiting for Will there. 

But now, as they gave themselves to the humble purity of nature’s temporary calm, they wanted each other in the way people want people. No ceremony of blood and deception. Just interpreting needs, refilling wine glasses, and memorizing the way the other likes to be touched. 

All of that led to this moment, while Will watched Hannibal attentively and carefully – and with a furrowed brow – strip the softened gauze from his arm, he felt himself humming out, “I love you.” It was obvious and small but he thought if he didn’t let the comforting warmth of conventional romance slip into their relationship, he might lose those other bits of his authentic self.

The thought of liking to hear that confession, to probably make a habit of it, was a little alien to Hannibal but he brightly and viscerally felt the same. He paused briefly and said the same words, adding a kiss to the knuckles he was holding steady. If only for Will, Hannibal felt tied to the distinct earthy flavor of humanity that was in emotion and exchange. 

And, within minutes, Will was scrubbing off his paler limbs in the shower, retraining his hips that had learned to compensate for his cast, and reveling in the quiet glory of his newly easy life, warm weather, and reciprocated love.

  
  
  
  


\--------

  
  


That night, they laid in bed, toying with each other’s fingers on their held out hands.

“Where would you like to go next?”

Will jolted at the thought. “Do you think we’re in danger here?”

“No, no. We can wait. I just like to think ahead.”

“You surprise me with your interest in knowing everything several steps ahead of everyone else, but delighting in chaos as well.”

“I like the challenges posed by chaos. Just as you like the challenges posed by self sabotage. Your life of habit, routine, safety, provider role to loyal companions is also not congruent with your disorganized mind.”

“In the same way, your fixation on history and antiquated ideas of high culture aren’t congruent with your desire for impulse.”

Hannibal sucked his teeth disapprovingly. “I take my changed self to familiar texts just as I would familiar places.”

“Is that what you want? To go to a familiar place?”

“I’d love to take you to my old haunts, my old chapels, but I’d live in the dunes of the Sahara if that’s where you wanted to go.”

“Hmm, maybe not the Sahara.”

“Maybe not.”

“You’d miss all the people.” Unspoken: _the hunting._

“I would.” Hannibal gave a small, deviant smile.

They laid in the silence and warm light from the bedside lamp.

“Do you know what makes me crazy to the outsider, Will?” He looked over at the tired man. “My ability to hide what disturbs their peace.”

“It helps them sleep at night. Thinking you're governed by - motivated by - simple delusion rather than things as universal and sane as annoyance and self preservation.”

“Oh, are those what make me tick?” Hannibal slid his arm under Will’s head, pulling him a little closer.

“I don't pretend to fully understand you.”

“Why don't you ask yourself, Will?”

Will rolled his eyes. “Are you familiar with the strangler fig?”

“Hm. No. And I’m not sure I like the direction of this line of questioning.” He closed his eyes to continue listening.

“It’s a parasitic sort of adaptation of certain classifications of ficus. They web themselves around a tall tree, obscuring them, so that they can compete for the light.”

“You’re saying I am the strangler fig to you? Or is that my new Caribbean mystery killer headline?”

“I’m saying… at one point you were that to me. Or I thought you were. Then maybe we both were victims to our own strangler figs. Or maybe it’s not analogous at all.”

“We consume ourselves.”

“We diagnose ourselves with this concept of a ‘soul’ as an excuse to have a hidden self.”

“A name for what we all choose to obscure.”

“Don’t bring up your book, Hannibal.”

He grinned, still with his eyes closed. “I said nothing.”


	11. Agua y Canela

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> epilogue of sorts  
> i interrupted myself and clipped the end of the story before because I thought of a different fic and started that instead lol but Im back with a less abrupt ending lol

*

It was the first time they’d been this far out at sea without someone bleeding. How novel. The pair sold the hill property in Panama and, now without their fugitive desperation, invested in a nicer boat. One with a bed and a satisfactory kitchen and sink water that doesn’t taste like salty dimes. The Gulf Coast bits of Will were sighing, but it’d been too long drenched in humidity. The residue of rainy days crept under the eyelids, misted up the floors. The screens on the windows were decorated with insects. It was always impulsive to go to this place anyway. They needed a home that they created together, with the histories built into their cells but simple futures into its walls.

The boat told its own story. Fresh scrub lines on the exterior and a wood and linoleum interior that reeked of orange oil. Edges of the tiny bedroom were lined with books and maps. The control room was covered in sticky notes and fat Sharpie scrawl. They’d already done the rebirth thing. This was probably just a good old fashioned mid life crisis. It felt normal, just itchy, an agitation reminiscent of freshman year ambition and uncertainty.

The blood seals were pierced, the casts’ glue dissolved, pleasure found now in muscle memory and sometimes light wine. Some part of Will daydreamed of sailing through the islands of the Ring of Fire but, Hannibal, pretending to be logical, suggested they settle in the higher altitude suburbs of Santiago. It was a good thing, he supposed, to still have something so intellectually primal as wanderlust. And eagerness for volatility. And God, that’s why they were stitched after all. Something curious to look at.

They nursed a starving, whining black lab puppy into a joyfully wriggling loaf of muscle within those few weeks on the boat. She distracted Will whenever he sat still and she slept on Hannibal whenever he laid down. Luna. A living, breathing memento of their brief time in Panama and there would be something or someone in Santiago who changed them, too. And something or someone in the place after that.

It was all so full of literature aloud. And the scent of new lands. The noiselessly unfortunate passing of time. Below that, still, the inarticulate goodness of them.

*

*


End file.
